


Smoke Gets in Your Eyes

by Savageandwise



Category: The Beatles
Genre: M/M, McLennon, McLennon Fanfic Exchange, Not as much as I usually do, Sexual Content, Smoking, Some angst, Some descriptions of drug use, smuttiness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-01
Updated: 2017-03-16
Packaged: 2018-09-27 14:02:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,750
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10023938
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Savageandwise/pseuds/Savageandwise
Summary: "When your heart's on fire, you must realise,  smoke gets in your eyes."-The PlattersThe ballad of John and Paul smoking.Written for the Mclennon fanfic exchange.





	1. First Verse

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sleeprettydarling](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sleeprettydarling/gifts).



> The prompt was:  
> Smoking! Anything to do with overly romanticized/sexualized smoking, John and/or Paul watching each other smoke, tasting the smoke in each other's mouths, etc.

1964, Somewhere between London and San Francisco:

  


Paul stopped in the middle of the aisle to pinch himself. It wasn’t a dream. Everyone else on the plane was fast asleep. He couldn’t believe their luck.  


He turned on his heel and headed to the back of the plane where John was sitting, holding a book open in his lap, but Paul could tell he wasn’t really reading it; his eyes were trained blankly on the black type, a small smile played at the corners of his small, finely drawn mouth. John didn’t look up when Paul stood beside him, even though Paul could tell he was aware of him standing there. He didn’t look up until Paul put a hand on his shoulder. Playing hard to get.

  


**_(Come back. Come back. Come back._**

**_Come back. Come back to me._**

**_Finally._ **

_Paul’s hand on his shoulder sent a shock through John, like the time he was electrocuted by the broken mic._

_Only that much nicer.)_

  


“Penny for them,” Paul whispered, before clambering over John’s legs to get to his seat.

Though there wasn’t a hint of turbulence, he fell forward for a moment, their bodies colliding and Paul put his hands on John’s chest to steady himself.

“I thought you’d never stop pacing,” John said, grasping Paul’s arm, playing along with the fantasy that he was merely steadying him as the plane continued on its jerking course.

  


_(It was like a game of sleight of hand except they weren’t passing each other rabbits or doves to complete a magic trick, they were concealing affection in casual touches and glances._

_It was a game._

_A contest to see who could find the most excuses to touch the other one. And Paul loved a good spot of competition, didn’t he?_

_John loved it himself._

_Sometimes, with Paul, he loved it whether he won or not.)_

  


“It’s just so boring, flying is,” Paul whinged. He finally sat down, squirming in his seat like a little boy who’d eaten too much candy. He couldn’t seem to get comfortable and if his fingers just happened to graze John’s thigh as he struggled to find the right position, it really wasn’t his fault, was it?  


“Stop wriggling!” John hissed but his lips were curved in a full blown grin now. He clamped his hand over Paul’s, his thumb stroking the inside of his wrist until Paul’s eyelids drooped in pleasure. He rolled his head to the side, letting it fall to John’s shoulder. His lips brushed the side of his neck. John smelled of spicy aftershave and cigarettes and he was tempted to stick his tongue out to taste him but he didn’t dare risk it. 

There had been far too many close calls recently and most of them were due to John’s inability to control himself in public. And even when John was on his best behaviour there was the way he would stare. Paul hoped he was the only one who had caught on. He hoped he didn’t look at John like that, like he was a starving man looking through the window at a fabulous banquet. 

At the same time he longed for it. He found himself searching out John’s face at the most inopportune moments. And when he did and their eyes met across a stage or over the heads of their mates at a press conference he was rewarded by that feeling of falling, that feeling that they were falling into each other.

  


_(He wanted to press Paul against the airplane window, see him framed against the night sky._

_Grapple with him until he came all over his hand, hot and sticky._

_But he’d settle for the feeling of Paul’s head on his shoulder instead. He wasn’t sure how the whole thing had started up again._

_It had come upon them like fever and all at once they couldn't seem to stop touching each other._  
_They’d been in France on tour over half a year ago._

_Paris._

_John had managed not to bring up that first Paris trip they’d taken together on his 21st birthday._

_He’d been proud of himself, proud of his self-control. It hadn’t even bothered him as much as he thought it might, sharing a room with Paul._

_Paul had stayed up late with Ringo and having come in reeking of drink, collapsed across John's bed._

_The weight of him, across his legs. Delicious._

_He'd attempted to undo Paul's tie at least so that he wasn't strangled in his sleep and Paul had slid his hands, warm and clumsy, under John's t shirt._

_“It's me, you daft get.”_

_“I know that, I'm not that pissed.”_

_That settled that._

_Paul's desperation: shocking and infectious._

_He'd climbed on top of John, and moved against him, his hands tight on his wrists, holding him down._

_“Couldn't find a bird you fancied, love?” He'd whispered, half amused and entirely aroused._

_“Don't want a bird.”)_

  


Paul leaned forward to see if the others were still asleep, half rising out of his seat before  
John grabbed the back of his shirt. John’s hand lingered on the small of his back, warm, heavy and befuddling and Paul paused where he stood, not wanting John to stop touching him.  


“Sit down will you?” John said under his breath, sliding his hand downward, fingers hooking in his belt loops for a moment before continuing their descent.

“They’re asleep and we need to talk about song stuff,” John continued. His eyes locked with  
Paul’s. He deliberately allowed to his hand to linger on Paul’s arse. A slow blush spread across Paul’s face; only then did John remove his hand and Paul slid back into his seat with a sigh.

  


_(He'd forgotten how good it felt._

_How he used to lose his head completely every time Paul was near._

_He couldn't recall when they had stopped and why._  


_Desire had ebbed and flowed like the tide._

_That night in Paris, Paul had kissed him violently, his teeth sharp against his lower lip._

_He had tasted of cigarettes and cognac._

_The unshaven scruff on Paul’s face had scraped against his skin mercilessly._

**_Paul._ **

_He’d felt his need like a blow to the stomach.)_

  


“Song stuff, eh?” Paul raised an eyebrow.

“Yeah. Do you have anything good?” John asked, his fingers playing with the cuff of Paul’s sleeve.

Paul leaned back and tilted his head at John wrinkling his nose. “Can’t this wait? I’m tired and I need a wash and…” His voice trailed off and he leaned his thigh against John’s.

“Naughty.” John said with a smirk and pushed back.

They played that game for a while until Paul decided it was safer to stop. John shot him a smirk. That meant he’d lost the round.

  


_(It made a difference._

_Paul was playing the game with him. John had never had a girl who could play the game._

_Who could keep score and match him blow for blow._

_Cyn was either studiously oblivious or hurt when he drew back to the point of cruel negligence and then came on so strong it made her head spin._

_But Paul could hold his own._

_His mind was devious._

_His appetite relentless._

_And he knew just what to say to make John crazy with desire.)_

  


“Give us a ciggie?” Paul wheedled, plucking at the front of John’s shirt where he kept his cigarettes and matches. “I smoked all of mine hours ago.”

“I only have the one left. Why don’t you wake someone up and ask for one?” John asked, pushing Paul’s hands away but not before squeezing them between his own.

“Because I’d have to wake them up and then we wouldn’t be… _alone_ ,” Paul intoned the last word like an actor on a radio show and gave John a sidelong glance.

That answer seemed to please John because he smiled slow and sweet, tilting his head in what he clearly thought was a winsome manner.

“I guess you’ll just have to do without then. I’m flattered you’d give up smoking for me.” He fluttered his eyelashes and folded his arms across his chest so that Paul couldn't get to the packet and matches in his breast pocket.

“Well. You could give it to me. That would be the nice thing to do. The uh…you know friendly...gentlemanly thing to do.” Paul pouted. “If you were really my friend.”

“If I was.”

“Johnny…” Paul half sang.  


"Tell you what Princess, we can share."

Paul started to frown at the nickname but grinned instead.

“Perfect.” He pawed at John’s chest again.  


“Sometimes I think you’re just using me,” John sighed dramatically. “You don’t want me at all, just my cigarettes.”

“I thought you only have the one?” Paul asked.

“I do.” He put his hand back over Paul’s.

Their eyes met. Then he pushed Paul’s hand and pulled out the packet, shaking the last one out and lighting it. He inhaled slowly, letting the smoke out in a leisurely manner.

“Lovely,” John in contentment. Bringing the cigarette back to his lips, he kept his eyes on Paul’s face while he blew a ring with the smoke.

“Give it here!” Paul squirmed impatiently. “You promised.”

“Didn’t,” John took another slow drag and shut his eyes in pleasure.

“But you said...¨ Paul whined.

“I said we can share.” John filled his lungs with smoke and then leaned forward, taking Paul’s chin in his hand. He let out a giggle as John’s mouth pressed against his and pushed him away with a hiccup of indignation.

John made a sound of annoyance. “You’re wasting it.”

Paul gaped at him. “You’re being serious aren’t you?”

“Yeah. Come on. I’ll do it again.” John’s eyes glittered dangerously and he leaned forward, boldly slid an arm around Paul's shoulder and drew him close.

“What if…you know…if someone sees?” Paul whispered, his stomach quivering with nerves and excitement.

“Then we tell them we were sharing a cig. As one does.”

“Yeah, normal, this. Regular behaviour between mates.”

“Mates like us, anyroad.”

John filled his lungs again. This time Paul was the one to lean in, trap John’s mouth beneath his and suck the smoke into his own lungs. Their mouths lingered close as Paul released the smoke from his nostrils.

“Fabulous, ” he said, not entirely sure if he was referring to the smoke or the pressure of John’s lips on his own. “Do it again, will you?”

John did. And again and again and at some point it stopped being about the smoke. 

  


_(Paul's mouth was hot against his own and he couldn't wait a second longer. John slid his tongue into his mouth, not caring if they were caught._

_Fuck, he needed him._

_His heart was beating so fast he thought it would end him.)_

  


Paul drew away first. “You really got me going,” he sang into John’s ear.

“Just like you knew I would,” John said, reaching over to squeeze Paul’s knee. “Have I really got you going?”

“Decidedly.”

“Shame we’re stuck here then.”

“Shame.”

Paul plucked what remained of the cigarette from John’s fingers and took a drag from it.

“Because if we were really alone…” John began, his fingers brushing the inside of Paul’s thigh.

“What would you do?” Paul asked quickly, his tongue tripping over the words. His breath was shallow, his pulse rapid. He could feel the hairs prickling on the back of his neck, the way it sometimes felt when someone was watching you. Someone was always watching them now that they were famous and it was wonderful and awful all rolled into one.

Paul thought, not for the first time, that they were only back at it to deal with the stress of success. It didn’t really matter to Paul why they had started up again. All that mattered was how bleeding right it felt.

Paul took a last drag on the ciggie before handing it back, exhaling and enveloping them in smoke. Then before he had time to fully understand what was happening, John was kissing him on the mouth one last time, so hard and so fast it made his head spin.

  


_(His breath, smoky._

_Paul was soft in his arms, willing._

_And John waited a beat before he released him._

_Paul's hands gripped him tightly, holding him in place._

_He had to tear himself away._

_The brief struggle was glorious.)_

  


“I’d remind you that you’re mine,” John answered, flicking the ash to the airplane floor, his eyes aglint with something that made every inch of his skin burn with need. It took his breath away.  


“Am I?” Paul asked, pursing his lips and drawing his brows together. It was never good to let John get too confident, he needed the thrill of the chase.

  


_(Without question.)_


	2. Second Verse

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The ballad of John and Paul smoking.  
> Second verse.
> 
> "So I chaffed them and I gaily laughed  
> To think they could doubt my love"
> 
> -The Platters

1967, St. John's Wood, London

 

 

_(The room smelled of debauchery. Of perfume and smoke and spilled drink._

_And sex._

_John took a few halting steps, nearly tripping over someone's arm and stepping in a discarded plate of cake. He grabbed the back of an armchair to avoid falling and righting himself, knocked over a potted fern someone had left in the middle of the floor. He peered into the pot and realised why; someone had been using it as an ashtray._

_It was a slow process, his pilgrimage towards Paul's bedroom._

_A mad sort of dance._

_Three steps right. Two left. Hop. Skip. Jump_

_Cigarette butts were ground into the Persian carpet and there were glasses on every surface in the room: champagne goblets and wine glasses, brandy snifters._

_Snifter. The word made John giggle to himself_

_Funny to think of James Paul McCartney as he once was: too proper to dress like a Ted._

_Funny to imagine that he would one day own brandy snifters. That he would one day throw spontaneous parties where London’s glittering art scene might cavort and deliberate on pretentious subjects._

_Not too surprising they might crowd around Paul._

_The man shone._

_They were drawn to him like a moth to a flame. And John couldn’t blame them; he’d burned his wings on that flame time and again._

_It seemed he had missed the party of the century. He’d stayed home with Cyn instead because she had been begging him to for days._

_Stayed home and watched the wallpaper shift and sway._

_Shift and sway._

_Then it ended and he didn’t even bother with going sleep because the sun was coming up and he wanted to get to St. John's Wood before Paul woke up._

**_Needed to._**

_On the back of a chair: that red velvet jacket that made his heart beat faster every time Paul wore it._

_John shrugged out of his own jacket and into Paul's, ran his nose along the upturned collar._

_There was magic in other people’s clothes._

_Like slipping into their skin for moments at a time. Taking on elements of their character, folding it in with your own._

_Joined._

_Married._

_He could be Paul McCartney._

_“I’m Paul, I play bass.” He said to the reflection in the mirror._

_Pouted his lips, fluttered his eyelashes. Smiled shyly for the cameras._

_Snap. Snap. Snap. Flurry of flash._

_“I like my cock sucked. I like it best when John does it.”_

_John laughed out loud to himself._

_On the way to Paul's bedroom, clusters of landmines: a toppled chair, a lacy red brassiere, a shattered bottle of cognac, three ashtrays filled to the brim with cigarette butts._

_Paul's room was bathed in sunlight. He never did remember to close the drapes. His trousers lay in a tangled heap on the ground and John stooped to scoop them up. He folded them perfunctorily, as he might do for Jules and left them on the cluttered bedside table._

_Paul was still in bed, mercifully alone._

_The covers discarded, he lay sprawled across the bed dramatically as if on display. Yesterday's shirt was open to the navel, those fine pink flowers printed on the thin cotton contrasting sharply with the fine black hair on Paul’s chest. The result was shockingly masculine._

_John’s breath caught in his throat._

_Paul was naked from the waist down, one long leg trailing off of the bed almost like an afterthought._

_He looked so very young in his sleep, like a little boy. Sleep stripped away age, masks, titles._

_In sleep he was just Paul._

_Just his Paul._

_The boy he had sunbathed with in the cemetery.)_

  


And all at once Paul woke up. He didn’t have to open his eyes to know that John was there, sitting on the bed, resting his hand on his ankle.

He watched John through his lashes, not wanting to reveal to him that he was awake just yet. John was wearing his jacket and that flowery shirt they had bought together

John seemed sober enough, which was uncommon these days.  He was different, John was, when he thought no one was looking and it was so rare to catch him like that. The emotion he usually kept so carefully hidden was naked on his face. He looks like he loves me, Paul thought to himself. He considered opening his eyes and asking him but couldn’t get his nerve up.

  


_(He laughed at his own sentimentality and moved Paul's leg aside._

_On the night stand was a heavy glass ashtray, John reached in amongst the ashes and matchsticks, fished out a half smoked spliff. He knew at once Paul had rolled the spliff. It was precisely made, just the right amount of grass and tobacco in it._

_He could picture it: Paul bent over the paper, using some straight's business card as a mouthpiece, filling it, and then rolling it between his fine fingers._

_He made an art of it._

_Paul had a trick where he licked the spliff and lit the edge of it, letting the flame slither down the paper until the end was ablaze._

_He made an art of getting high._

_Paul made an art of everything._

_The pressure of his hand._

_The twist of his tongue._

_The angle of his hips when he thrust._

_Suffused with a lust as sudden as a heart attack, John inhaled. He held the smoke in his lungs for a moment and then exhaled into Paul's face as he slept.)_

  


He breathed in deep, the sharp scent of marijuana prickling in his nostrils. The act was so intimate, Paul felt his chest tighten.

  


_(Paul’s eyelashes fluttered as he coughed and then breathed in, lips parting._

_John felt his pulse jump._

**_I need you._** ) 

  


"So bloody dramatic Macca," John laughed. Paul opened his eyes at last and looked into John’s face.

  


_(He opened his eyes. Looked straight at John. He smiled. He looked exactly like an enchanted princess.)_

  


“Hmm, what a way to wake up.” Paul smiled sleepily, rubbing his eyes. He slid down in bed and rested his feet against John’s thighs. John laughed nervously but didn’t attempt to push him away.

“Thought I’d wake you with a blow job,” John said with a tight grin, his voice animated with excitement at his own joke.

“Mmm…feel free…”

John took another drag, shy now. His hand hovered over Paul’s shapely foot, one finger tracing the sea green veins beneath the skin.

"I dreamed you here." Paul said earnestly, reaching forward to his entwine his fingers with John's.

John held out the spliff and Paul took it with his other hand, lifting it to his lips to inhale the heady smoke. He didn’t let go of John’s hand.

"Did you?" John asked, looking down at their tangled fingers and then up again.

He nodded, his eyes fixed on John's. "I dreamed it and here you are."

John ran his lips along the back of Paul’s hand. His moustache tickled.

  


_(The letter ‘J’ against his skin._

_A mark._

**_A spell. To bind you to me._ **

**_You’re mine. Without question._** )

  


"What did I do in this dream of yours?" John asked him.

Paul leaned past John and placed the spliff in the ashtray. He slid his around John's neck and dragged him down on top of him among the pillows. Wrapped his long legs around John’s middle to hold him in place. Then he pressed his mouth to John’s, he slid his tongue against his hungrily.

“This,” Paul said when they came up for air. He kissed him again. “And this.” And again. “Ah, John. This.”

  


_(John needed Paul more than he needed oxygen.)_

  


"Thought you'd forgotten me. All your fancy friends...” John said, his thumb caressing the back of his neck. Paul shivered and stretched, cat-like. He began unbuttoning John’s shirt, his lips whispered at his neck, stubborn, single-minded. 

"How could I forget you?" he asked, tracing a line along John’s collar bone with his tongue. "When we're..."

"...two beats in the same bar," John finished, closing his eyes as Paul slid his hands over his bare chest.

Paul was hard, his naked cock already wet with the urgency of his desire. He moved against John subtly and felt him stiffen in turn. Paul couldn’t help but smile, angling his hips forward so that they rubbed against one another properly. He ached for John to touch him, his skin singing in anticipation, his breath coming faster. He wouldn’t ask for it though, not yet. Not till he was almost out of his mind with longing.

  


**_(One day soon when you surpass me._**

_John clung to the thought, painful as it was. Pain grounded him. And he needed to stay on the ground. Needed to remind himself that it would end one day. He couldn’t afford to be surprised by abandonment again. This time he would be prepared._

**_One day soon when you no longer need me._ **

_He delayed it as long as he could though that wasn’t generally his style._

_Then he touched his lips to Paul’s and pulled his hair, just to hear him moan._

_John was so hard now he throbbed with it._

_And so was Paul._

_He stroked Paul's cock almost shyly, as if he hadn’t done this a million times before, as if he was unsure of how to touch the other man. Paul let out a sharp gasp; his eyes were dark and heavy lidded with lust._

_“John,” he said, his voice pitched low. “Please.”_

_John hesitated and felt Paul nudge his hand eagerly, his breath escaping in little bursts._

_Like firecrackers._

_Could he feel his trepidation?_

_**No longer want me.**_

_Could he sense those poisonous thoughts swirling inside his mind?_

_Smoke trapped behind glass._

_Stifling him.)_

  


Paul rolled out from underneath John and flipped him flat on his back, his fingers working on the fastenings of his trousers. He needed to act fast before John could change his mind about it. Lately he’d been distant, often unresponsive and Paul wished to God that he would give up the acid. Today he was John again. His John.

“Too many clothes, John,” he breathed, “got to take them off.”

“No,” John said, casting a glance around them.

Paul looked up at him through his lashes, eyes sparkling with amusement.  "Oh, yes," he said with a coy smile. “Definitely yes.”

  


  
_(Before long Paul had stripped them both of their clothing._

_Naked._

_His desire uncovered._

_Unmasked._

_He could breathe again.)_

  


"Someone could..." John began.

“Let them," Paul sighed.

  


_(Did he really mean it?_

_Did he really not care if they were interrupted?_

_The man’s recklessness was the most powerful aphrodisiac._

_Paul’s hands, warm, confident. His eyes were closed but he knew precisely where to touch him and how._

_Oh, how did he know?_

_Why after everything they had done. All the drugs and the girls. All the excess._

_Why did it still always come back to Paul?_

_Fuck.)_

  


John moaned into his mouth, he was saying his name, drawing it out like something delicious he was reluctant to swallow too soon. He had Paul’s cock firm in his hand; he knew precisely the right rhythm to drive him out of his mind.

“Stop,” Paul breathed, “I want to wait for you.” And he took John in hand, stroked him until he was shivering and shuddering.

  


_(They came together._

_In Paul’s arms, his mind was finally blissfully silent.)_

  


In the ashtray, the spliff had gone out again. They didn’t think to finish smoking it until hours later.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to Amy for the beta. Thanks for pointing things out about my writing I wouldn't have noticed otherwise. And taking the time to go over it with me. I'm really grateful.
> 
> Thank you as always JaneScarlett. You do know me best. Love you all the time.
> 
> Thank you Twinka for support and long nights going over lines. Also chat poetry! You're good for distraction and many other things.
> 
> Thank you Julia for your weed skills.
> 
> Also. Sleeprettydarling, just so you know, I originally tried to write all 3 of your prompts before setting on this one.  
> Somewhere there's a teen! Beatle story floating around on my laptop.


	3. Middle Eight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The ballad of John and Paul smoking.  
> Middle eight.  
>   
> "So I smile and say  
> When a lovely flame dies, smoke gets in your eyes"
> 
> -The Platters

1969, London, Twickenham:

 

_(Well he was here wasn’t he?_

_He was present._

_Well, wasn’t he?_

_His body was. His mind was smoke._

_Vapour._

_And that was just the way he liked it. He saw everything through a sepia film, the grimy residue that clung to a room in which a hundred thousand cigarettes had been smoked._

_He was here while they were poked and prodded and filmed as they griped at each other like some second rate, self-involved band._

_He was perfectly calm while the others fell to pieces._

_The volume was turned way down._

_John was here. There. Nowhere._

_He tilted his head and caught Yoko's dead stare. Pain rippled across her face like a skipping stone over the surface of a body of water. She was coming down, hurting inside._

_Starving._

_That endless hunger that could never be stilled. John was still home and dry. Safe on his cloud._

 

_Paul was attempting explain how he wanted something done. His voice insistent, irritating and abrasive as the buzz of an insect. He wove back and forth. His hands fluttering through his hair, preening nervously. Smoothing his ruffled feathers._

_Bird's wings._

_Every muscle in his face was tense. His lips a thin line, drawn on crooked with a shaky hand._

_His eyelids shivering. Eyelashes aquiver. His voice so thin and taut, a guitar string wound almost to the snapping point._

 

_Time was. Time was John would have pulled him aside, into some secluded area._

_He knew just how to relieve the tension._

_They had done it for each other more times than he could count._

_No_

_NO._

_He blocked the thought._

_That was over. He was never doing that again. Never. He was liberated and destroyed simultaneously._

 

_God. The feeling of Paul in his hand. His weight against him, sweet and heavy, the shudder of his heart, off-beat. His breath in his ear. John. Please. Oh. Oh. Please. Oh._

_Sticky and hot._

_He would catch Paul’s gaze and hold it fast._

_Raise his hand to his mouth and lick him from his palm._

_John felt ill remembering it._

_Queasy with shame and want._

_His stomach tight with arousal.)_

  


There was just no getting through to him anymore. That bond they had shared had been severed and Paul wasn't even sure how it had happened. One day they were closer than any two humans could be. And the next it was as if nothing had ever passed between them. As if they hadn't at one point shared dreams, finished each other's sentences, given each other pleasure so acute it defied all sense.

Paul struggled to keep his desperation in check as he tried to get through to John. To recreate a time before all this confused lack of communication, all these complications.

John was in turns distant and overenthusiastic. His enthusiasm mirroring Paul’s own, embarrassingly contrived. His moments of cool detachment were becoming increasingly frequent. To a certain extent John had always been like this. But in the past Paul had been able to predict his moods as a seaman predicts the weather. Now he was lost at sea, rudderless, no star to sail by. He went into each day uncertain if he would find calm seas or the tempest. The only constant Paul could see was John’s sickening dependency on Yoko.

 

_(He took her hand and dragged her to the loo, ignoring the looks and whispers behind them. He pushed her into the stall and sat her on the toilet. She gazed past him, her eyes cloudy._

_Who did she see when she looked at him like that?_

_Did she know that he sometimes saw Paul in the smoky vestibule of his heroin drenched mind?_

_Paul as he had been, a lad of nineteen, his hand wrapped around John’s wrist._

**_Come go with me._ ** __

_Yoko made a soft sound like the cooing of a dove and John pulled out the equipment._

_Her lips parted, she blinked at him, dazed, filled with a craving, insatiable and cruel._

_"John," she breathed. "I need it."_

_He knew she did. He could see her longing, could feel it like a cut in his heart._

_He prepared the needle and then stood, stooped over her, poised. He ran his fingers over the pale expanse of her inner arm; her veins were like ropes of seed pearls beneath the translucent skin._

_"Brace yourself," he said, like a man about to fuck his wife without foreplay. ___

_Yoko closed her eyes, eyeballs trembling beneath lids thin as onion skin._

_"Do it."_

  


_So John did.)_

 

Something snapped inside Paul when he saw John get up and pull Yoko after him. He opened his mouth to speak but only a laugh came out. It was so strangled it was barely audible but George looked up anyway and gave him a small smile. They had been at odds lately but dislike of Yoko united them.

Paul found a crumpled pack of cigarettes under a newspaper. He shook one out and stuck it between his lips. He fumbled in his pocket for a lighter, his fingers stiff and uncooperative. By the time he managed to retrieve the lighter, John was re-entering the room with Yoko by his side. He studied John’s face covertly; it lacked that glow, that self-satisfied glow of a man who had just come.  Paul quivered with relief. He thought about following John next time he left the room, of pulling him into an abandoned room or broom closet. He imagined pressing himself to John’s body, thrusting his trembling hands under the clothing that hung loose on his rake thin frame and running them over his skin. The thought of touching John made him feel lightheaded and a little sick, like the first cigarette after a long illness.

It had been so long since they had touched, longer still since they had been intimate. Paul struggled to remember when the last time had been. The trouble with the last time was that you rarely knew in the moment that that was going to be it.

The last time he’d had an honest talk with his mum before her operation. The last time he’d argued with Stu. The last time he’d heard Eppy laugh. 

The last time with John had been in New York. Jet lagged and coming down from a potpourri of pills, they’d fallen asleep in the rented flat. They’d slid together sleepily upon waking up, kissing and touching casually in between a vague conversation about dinner plans and press conferences. And then something changed in the dynamic between them, and they were caught in a vacuum of desire as sudden as a summer storm. He was sure he loved John then. The wild expression in his narrow eyes, the way he kissed him like it was the first time rather than the zillionth, his mouth hard and soft at once, his tongue insistent against Paul’s own.

“Will you…” he’d begun and then groaned. “Fuck Paul, fuck. I want you.”

They made love recklessly, sloppily, in hindsight far too quickly. If he had known then what he knew now he would have forced himself to take his time, he would have committed each stroke to memory.

After, spent and drowsy with pleasure, he’d played with the idea of making some sort of passionate declaration. Something dramatic. _I’m yours. Without question._

But he hadn’t been able to think of the appropriate words and then the moment was over.

A week later everything had changed, John announced that he was Jesus Christ and Paul was left wondering if he should have seen it coming.

He resumed his attempts to light the cigarette, which had grown a bit soggy between his lips.  The lighter clicked hollowly once, twice, three times, on the fourth he managed a weak flame. He was startled to see John standing next to him, looking at him like he could read his mind. Paul took a slow, shaky drag from the ciggie.

“I was thinking we ought to try some old standards and Blue Moon and all that,” John said at last.

Paul managed a small nod before John plucked the cigarette from between his lips. John’s tongue darted out to lick the corner of his mouth nervously before he drew in a lung full of smoke.

“I’d like that, yeah,” Paul said quietly.

John exhaled smoke in a thin stream from his nostrils, his eyes fixed on Paul’s as he watched John’s mouth. He tugged on the cigarette again and then pressed it back into Paul’s hand. 

When John turned on his heel to walk back to Yoko, Paul touched the cig to his mouth but didn’t inhale. Then he lowered it and flicked away the ash with an impatient twitch of his fingers and licked his lips where the filter had just been.

  


_(It was a war._

_A duel._

_Who knew when it had begun? Maybe they’d always been at it, ever since they faced each other at the Woolton fete as lads._

_Back to back. Weapons in hand. Nine paces. Count them out. Turn and fire._

_John thought he might offer Paul a truce. A real one, not just the nostalgia of their old favourite songs. He might draw up terms. Express what it was he truly felt in plain English._

_What was it he truly felt?_

_Lust? Love? Friendship? Familiarity?_

_All of them? None of them?_

_But they’d never been honest in the past. They’d never allowed it to come to any sort of natural conclusion._

_Coitus interruptus._

_They’d always stopped right before they got to the real part and let the music do the talking._

 

_I don’t like you._

_But I love you._

_Seems that I’m always thinking of you._

 

_Theirs was a love built on confusion._

_The fucking road was long and winding. And it was difficult to see what it was they were trying to get back to._

_“All I’m saying is…All I’m saying…you know…”_

_The problem was Paul ran his mouth at a million miles an hour and never said a thing._

_Who knew what it was Paul wanted from him anyway; he’d sooner die than say what it was. Even now. The emptiness of his words. Of his expression. The banal niceness._

_Paul had never wanted honesty. He’d always wanted what was comfortable. Convenient._

_If he had the balls he might take Paul by the back of the head, grab that stub of a cigarette, grind it under the rubber soul of his shoe and cover his mouth with his own. Scruffy beard be damned. Tongues and all._

_Might be worth it to see the looks on everyone’s faces. The look on Paul’s face._

_**I dare you to. I dare you. Do it, John.** _

_There’s an end for your movie, Michael. Academy award quality stuff._

_**I dare you.** _

_Shame he was a coward._

 

_Oh, oh, oh I want to split now._

_I just can’t quit now._

_You really got a hold on me._

_You really got a hold on me, baby.)_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The lyrics at the end of the verse are from You've really got a hold on me by Smokey Robinson 
> 
> Thank you Amy for the beta! I don't know what I'd be otherwise.  
> Thank you for the line: "His voice so thin and taut, a guitar string wound almost to the snapping point."  
> And just making me think more and better about how I write.  
>  
> 
> Thank you as always to JaneScarlett. You keep me sane. I miss you!
> 
>  
> 
> Thank you Twinka. You really have a great mind. I admire you so much. And you're great at helping me untangle my messes. 
> 
>  
> 
> Thanks as always to Single Pigeon for reading my orphaned paragraphs and being such a big inspiration. (She inspired the weed sharing with a funny meme guys!)
> 
>  
> 
> Thank you Sleeprettydarling for your lovely comments. I'm so glad you're enjoying it! I hope you still are.
> 
> One more verse to go!


	4. Third Verse

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The ballad of John and Paul smoking.
> 
> Third Verse.
> 
> "They asked me how I knew  
> My true love was true  
> I of course replied  
> Something here inside cannot be denied"
> 
> -The Platters

Liverpool 1958:

  


_(John woke up so aroused he ached._

_Half in that dream still._

_That throw away dream._

_He kept remembering that little gasp; a ribbon of smoke escaping from between soft lips and he groaned into his pillow, pressed himself into the mattress._

_Rubbing himself against the sheet he recalled the match struck._

_The candle lit._

_The cigarette._

_He shoved his hand down his pyjama bottoms and thrust into his fist._

_Oh god._

_The light from the candle. The haze of smoke when it went out._

_Oh fuck._

_When he came it felt like dying._

_His heart labouring like mad while he shook all over uncontrollably._

_It took him a few minutes to catch his breath._

_The wetness cooling on the sheet as he went limp in his hand._

_It took another minute to realise what he had just done.)_

  


After the initial shock of Julia’s death, Paul began to see a different side to his mysterious friend, less God and more human and though he would never have admitted it aloud, he liked it. He liked the flashes of vulnerability he glimpsed in him now. There was something just under the surface, a darkness that Paul recognised, a strangeness. He was drawn to that strangeness, because he recognised it in himself. People expected you to go back to normal when the truth was, you never would feel normal again. It did get better though. The trick was to find something to distract yourself with; for Paul that thing was playing guitar. 

He didn't know how to tell John that would get better without overstepping an unspoken rule. So he just tried to be extra useful in the band instead. He found that John respected his opinion when it came to music, he asked him for it.

Mimi might still call him 'John’s little friend', but he understood there had been a shift in their friendship. Paul wasn’t his little friend any longer; they were equals.

  


_(It was like the dream opened up a Pandora’s box of horrible, dirty thoughts. And he didn’t know how stuff them back in again._

_There was no hope at the bottom of the box._

_He thought about it all the time._

_At the most inopportune moments._

_While setting the table for Aunt Mimi, sitting in class with Cynthia, while taking a bath._

_The only good thing about it was that it had replaced that image of Julia that was burned behind his eyelids._

_When he reached for the memory of his dead mother all he saw was Paul._

_Paul._

_Paul McCartney. His little musical friend._

_Even thinking of his name made his pulse race. His head spin. His prick…_

_Oh god._

_He was so aroused._

_All the bloody time now._

_He was so hard. Harder than he’d ever been with a girl._

_He couldn’t make it through the day without sticking his hand down his trousers and rubbing one off, all the while thinking of the cigarette between Paul’s lips._

_He couldn't explain what had happened. It had been such a vague, pedestrian dream. A dream he wouldn't have thought twice about under normal circumstances._

_It was absurd that he’d woken up like this._

_Cyn looked at him like she knew what he was thinking. So he showered her with attention until she blushed and bloomed like a rose._

_The distraction. Any distraction was good._

_But his thoughts always circled back to Paul._

_That succubus._

_After the first few times he’d discarded the guilt like an ill-fitting piece of clothing. Now when he pleasured himself he allowed himself to think of his friend’s hands, his lips, his long legs. Once, feeling bold he’d said the name out loud:_

**_Paul._ **

_He came so hard he nearly passed out._

_It was more difficult to deal with the guilt when he was face to face with the real Paul._

_It was more difficult to ignore the questions he refused to ask himself._

_The clever thing, the safe thing would have been to limit his contact._

_Limit it to making music._

_But John never did like to play it safe.)_

  


He was half asleep when he heard the pebble hit his window. 

John Lennon was standing outside, looking up. He was wearing his glasses, holding on to the arms of the frames like he was prepared to tear them from his face the second he saw what he had come to see.

Paul leaned out the window and held a finger to his lips. Then he gestured for him to go around to the back of the house. 

He scrambled up the drainpipe as soon as Paul opened the bathroom window. 

John was grinning like madman, his teeth very white in the darkness. 

“What are you doing here?” Paul whispered. He put a hand on John’s arm to steady him. 

"Let me in you daft lad. Before I'm seen." 

Paul hesitated a moment before reaching for John. He climbed in, tripping over a towel rack and fell into Paul's startled arms.

"Shhhh," Paul hissed. "Me dad!"

"Ah yes. He does so worry I'll comprise the virtue of his first born," John mocked, fluttering his eyelashes and pursing his lips into a moue.

Paul cursed his fair complexion, he couldn't stop the blush spreading slowly across his cheeks. “My virtue?” he stuttered. “I’ve been with girls before, you know.”

“Have you now?” John raised an eyebrow suggestively.

“I have…Oh,” Paul said and gave John’s shoulder a little punch. 

"Well, not to worry, your virtue is safe with me." John leaned against the sink and folded his arms across his chest. 

Paul gave him what he hoped was a nonchalant shrug. He wanted to seem worldly to John, not like some dumb kid. He envied John with his steady girlfriend and confident swagger.  

"I'm not worried." He picked up the fallen towel rack and dragged John from the bathroom and into his bedroom.

In Paul’s room, they lay on the narrow bed with their legs hanging off the side, chatting about nothing in hushed whispers. Paul wanted to ask again why John had come here in the middle of the night but with John, you never knew if a simple question might cause him to fly into a rage. He should have simply told him the truth: that he was tired and had to be up early in the morning to go visit Auntie Gin. But he was sure that John was simply biding his time, waiting for the right moment to say what he had come here to say.

And sure enough, John sat up and looked down at him, his mouth quivering. 

“Your mum died two years ago, yeah?”

Paul nodded slowly. Sometimes it seemed like yesterday. Sometimes it seemed like centuries ago. “Yeah. Yeah. Yes.”

John hesitated. “Do you still…”

“What?”

“Do you still remember her smile?”

Paul looked at John for a long time before answering. He was startled by the sudden serious turn their conversation had taken.

“I do.” He didn’t always. He sometimes struggled to remember her eye colour. She was his mum, just his mum. You don’t usually think about that sort of thing. 

He didn’t tell John that though. He wasn’t sure what John wanted to hear. 

“I’m forgetting things,” John whispered. “I’m forgetting what she smelled like. What it felt like when she hugged me. Isn’t it too early to forget that?”

Paul sucked on his lower lip, considering John’s question for a moment.

“I guess I was without her for so many years…I just…never committed her to memory,” John cut in before he could answer.

“I had my mum for fourteen years,” Paul said. “She was here the whole time. I still forget sometimes.”

He thought John had probably been better prepared to lose his mum. He’d already lost her once. But he didn’t know how to say that without sounding foolish.

“When she died…uh…when me Dad told us she had died…” Paul paused, uncertain if he should continue or not.

“Yeah?” John rolled over and propped himself up on his elbow. 

“I asked him what we were going to do for money.” Shame coloured Paul’s face.

John reached over and pressed a finger to Paul’s side.

“You didn’t mean it like that,” he said quietly.

“Yeah…no I didn’t… it was just…” Paul let out a breath heavily. “..me putting me foot in it as usual.”

John rolled onto his back again. And after a while he pulled a squashed cigarette and a box of matches from his pocket and went to the window to light it. He opened the window letting the cool night air in. 

“Does it get better?” John asked taking a long drag and then blowing the smoke out into the night.

It seemed to Paul this was the question he’d wanted to ask to whole time.

“It does a bit,” Paul admitted. “It does.” He said it more for himself than for John. 

“She liked the music. She liked what we were doing with the music,” John whispered.

“Of course she did.” Paul said with a smile.

“She thought we were going to be big. I guess that’s the sort of thing mums say isn’t it?”

“I think she was right. We could be like those great musical teams. You know? Gilbert had Sullivan. Rodgers had Hammerstein. Leiber had Stoller. You and…” 

 “Lennon and McCartney,” John interrupted, grinning, his eyes alight with infectious excitement.

“Yeah…Together we could be like them…you know…they each had their musical partner…”  

He thought their names had a nice ring to them, lined up next to each other. He got up and stood beside John by the window so that he didn’t have to raise his voice to be heard.

“And you’re mine,” John said with the hint of a question in his tone, “my musical partner.”

“Without question,” Paul said with an air of finality. He leaned over and took the cigarette from John and stuck it between his lips confidently. 

John looked at him; his mouth falling open in shock, there was a strange expression on his face that Paul couldn’t figure out. Maybe, Paul thought absurdly, he looked like Paul did himself when he gazed in the window of Hessy’s at the new guitars.

“What? Partners always share,” he said and took a short drag of the ciggie like a little hiccup of surprise. He only managed to inhale a little bit before he coughed and opened his mouth to release the smoke.

 

_(Paul._

_Outlined in moonlight._

_The cigarette between his graceful fingers._

_John couldn’t breathe.)_

 

Paul tried again. He flashed John a smile and then sucked the smoke into his lungs, kept it there a moment and then released it slowly. He was quite pleased with the result.

“You been practicing in front of the mirror, have you?” John asked raising a brow and taking the cigarette from him.

“Me? No!” Paul spluttered indignantly.

“Sure you have,” John laughed but his voice lacked that light-hearted quality.

He flicked the ciggie out the window and then reached behind Paul to slide the window shut. Paul felt his hands at his back for a moment and the whisper of his smoky breath against his cheek. He was startled at how threatening the action was, how little space there was between them. Then letting out a small impatient sound, John grabbed a fistful of his night shirt and pulled him close. There was a moment before it happened when Paul thought about struggling. He saw something in John’s eyes, something dark and scarily grown up. And then John pressed his mouth to Paul’s. 

It took Paul a moment to realise what was happening because this was the last thing, the very last thing he’d expected to happen. When he did and he opened his mouth say something about it, he felt John’s tongue slide against his, a desperate, muffled sound escaping him. Paul thought it sounded like his name.

A spasm of panic wracked him. This was John. John was kissing him. He wanted him to stop because he wasn’t at all sure how he felt about it and he couldn’t think about it while it was still happening. He couldn’t think at all. And for an awful, sickening, terrifying, dizzying moment, Paul kissed him back.

Their noses collided; John gripped Paul’s arms tightly as he pressed into him, forcing him against the windowpane, the frame dug into his back sharply. It can’t have lasted longer than a handful of seconds when all at once John released him. 

Paul stood there dumbstruck, watching John struggle to catch his breath. Paul's legs were trembling; he could barely stand. John flashed him a hot, challenging look. 

“Don’t make a big deal out of it, yeah?” He sounded almost angry as if Paul had just kissed him out of the blue rather than the other way around. 

 

_(He was angry._

_Angry at himself for being so foolish._

_Angry at Paul for kissing him back._

_For spoiling everything._

_Angry that it had exceeded every fantasy he’d been nursing for the past month._

_He wanted to do it again. He wanted that hot, soft mouth._

_He wanted it again and again._

_John thought about leaving then. But there was a hard heavy knot of defiance at the bottom of his stomach. So he kicked off his shoes instead._

_"I’m knackered. I’ll just kip here if it’s all the same,” he said._

_Paul nodded once._

_He looked dazed._

_John took off his trousers and got into bed. After a while Paul came away from the window and stood at the foot of the bed just looking at him._

_“Oh lie down, will you? Stop being such a child,” John said rolling his eyes._

_He couldn’t read the expression on Paul’s face._

_It was over._

_The friendship._

_The music._

_**The end.**_

_All because he had to know what it felt like for real._

_He could kill himself._

_At last Paul got into bed beside him.)_

  


He lay on his back, his pulse racing. John had kissed him. He had kissed John back. And it was different than any kiss he’d ever had before. There were things he knew he ought to think about, things about himself and about John. Questions he ought to ask himself, ought to ask John. But with John in bed beside him he didn’t dare. 

He wondered about John’s angry words, his abrasive manner and the way he rolled his eyes as if Paul were a nuisance. Maybe, Paul thought, he’d done something wrong, maybe he hadn’t been any good. Maybe John had simply been testing him as he sometimes did and now he was disgusted with him. Disgusted at the way he’d kissed him back, the way he’d closed his eyes and let John press against him. Paul’s stomach tightened with dread and a vague longing.  For ages he stared at the ceiling, sick with worry. And then he heard John sigh beside him. He was still awake, Paul realised with a start. He reached over and took his friend's hand. John gripped it tightly and didn’t let go. And Paul lay there, feeling the pressure of John’s fingers on his until sleep finally claimed him.

 

_(His relief was so intense it hurt._

_He woke in the middle of the night to find he was still holding hands with Paul McCartney. Only in sleep the other boy had turned against him and was snuffling sweetly against his shoulder._

_It wasn’t the end, John realised._

_It was the beginning.)_

 

 

**_(In the dream, that dream, it was pitch black. Blacker than Mimi’s heart._ **

**_Maybe the electricity had gone out in the whole city the way it sometimes had during the war._ **

**_Maybe there was no light in this dream, only sounds._**

**_It wouldn’t be the first time._ **

**_He couldn't make out where he was but he knew Paul was there with him, the way you often do in dreams._ **

**_He could sense the other boy there. That slight air of expectancy. Like he was waiting for John to say something clever._ **

**_The scent of Pear’s soap and sweat and a hint of camphor from the moth balls in his cupboard._ **

**_There was a scratching sound and then a hiss as Paul dragged a match over the rough surface of a matchbox and it burst into flame._ **

**_And then John could see him._ **

**_He was holding a candle, his babyish face illuminated by the soft warm light._ **

**_"Shouldn't be long now," John said, apropos of nothing._ **

**_Paul stuck a cigarette between his lips and bent towards the candle to light it._ **

**_"Kill a sailor that way, son." John informed him._ **

**_Paul shrugged._ **

_**My dad's a sailor, John thought. But he didn't say it out loud.** _

**_Paul lit the cigarette and sucked the smoke into his lungs with a short gasp, the way you do when you’re just accustoming yourself to inhaling._ **

**_He exhaled out the window._ **

**_A gust of wind snuffed the candle out._ **

**_Tendrils of smoke bloomed against Paul’s face._ **

**_"The movement you need is on your shoulder," he said earnestly._ **

 

**_In the dream John knew exactly what he meant.)_ **

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Writing this fic was a bit of a roller coaster ride!  
> I had a lot of fun researching and figuring out which eras to use. It's the first thing I ever posted where I wrote up huge passages and then discarded them. Maybe I'll use the discarded chapters for something else one of these days.
> 
> Thank you so much to Amy for proofreading. I'm sorry I'm such a handful. Thank you for being understanding and patient.
> 
> Thank you to JaneScarlett. I love you always. Thank you for having so much faith in me. And liking my John voice. That really means a lot to me. 
> 
>  
> 
> Thank you to Single Pigeon. This last verse was a bit of a bitch to write and she basically read the whole thing in raw installments. Also thanks for my new obsession. You know what I'm talking about.
> 
> Thank you to Twinka for inspiring me to be edgier. I hope you like it. Thank you for holding my hand. You're a great hand holder.
> 
> Thank you to Jobeymacias for the pep talk. 
> 
> Thank you to Emma. You really inspired me in ways I wasn't even aware of until I started to think about it. A lot of my ideas on Paul's behaviour are based on things you've said.♡
> 
> And finally thank you Sleeprettydarling for the prompt. I hope I didn't rip your heart out! And that you're happy with the final product!

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much to Amy for proofreading and generally being supportive and understanding. You're the loveliest. You're also an endless source of inspiration.
> 
> Also to JaneScarlett for being my friend, my best love. Thank you for going to Liverpool with me and understanding about the Beatles.
> 
> Thanks as always to Single Pigeon for letting me put bits of paragraphs in your Skype to save them from being swallowed by the evil fic dragon.
> 
> Thanks to Twinka for being a distraction. In the best way.
> 
> Thank you to Sleeprettydarling, my fic exchange partner! I wasn't sure about the subject at first but I ended up loving it. I love when that happens. I hope you like it!
> 
> There are still 3 chapters to go. Hang in there dudes!


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